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what books improve us as marketers?

On more than one occasion, people have asked me a similar question: “What books would you recommend reading to learn about marketing?”

The truth? I’ve never read a single ‘marketing book’ in my life.

I know that several thousand exist. And I’m not deriding them for one moment. But I genuinely believe that improving ourselves as marketers, as planners (and indeed, as people) needs not be limited to ‘marketing books’.

As a planner, your role is extremely varied from one project to the next, but consistently, it’s about trying to look at things differently; to place yourself in the shoes of others and connect with them in meaningful, powerful ways; to see the world from different perspectives:

While I can’t recommend a particular ‘marketing book’, I am an avid reader and can recommend many books – and reading, full stop.

I genuinely believe that the more we read, the more stories we consume, the more perspectives and views we consider, the better people we become. The more empathetic we are. And that is what makes you a better person; a better planner; a better marketer.

The list below comprises the 31 books I managed to get through in 2015, in order of reading them:

Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck (1937)

Meadowland, John Lewis-Stempel (2014)

Tales From Ovid, Ted Hughes (1997)

Notes From Walnut Tree Farm, Roger Deakin (2008)

Dialogues and Letters, Seneca (c. 4BC – AD 65)

Hot Water Music, Charles Bukowski (1983)

Wild Hares and Hummingbirds, Stephen Moss (2011)

The Living Mountain, Nan Shepherd (1977)

Sussex Folk and Sussex Ways, John Coker Egerton (1892)

Lewes: Its Religious History, J. M. Connell (1931)

Landmarks, Robert Macfarlane (2015)

Minor King, Jim Mitchem (2014)

The Man Who Was Sussex, Robert Thurston Hopkins (1933)

You Get So Alone At Times That It Just Makes Sense, Charles Bukowski (1986)

Franny and Zooey, J D Salinger (1961)

The Dharma Bums, Jack Kerouac (1958)

To the River, Olivia Laing (2011)

The Heart of England, Edward Thomas (1906)

On Love and Barley – Haikus of Basho, Basho (c. 1672 – 1698)

Hangover Square, Patrick Hamilton (1941)

The Last Sheaf, Edward Thomas (1928)

Four Fields, Tim Dee (2013)

The Sussex Downs Murder, John Bude (1936)

A Wiltshire Diary, by Francis Kilvert (c. 1870 – 1879)

On Foot in Sussex, A A Evans (1933)

Veronika Decides to Die, Paulo Coelho (1998)

The Captain is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship, Charles Bukowski (1998)